Carmine DeSapio

Carmine DeSapio (10 December 1908-27 June 2004) was a New York City politician and the last head of the Tammany Hall political machine to dominate municipal politics.

Biography
Carmine DeSapio was born in Lower Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City on 10 December 1908 to a family of Italian descent, and he graduated from Fordham University in 1931. In 1939, he was first elected as a district captain for Tammany Hall, and he became the organization's youngest boss in 1949. His succession of Hugo Rogers ended Irish-Americans' dominance of the organization, and he had links to organized crime, meeting with American Mafia boss Frank Costello on several occasions. He supported the rise of minorities in the city's politics, but he also sold judicial nominations. From 1955 to 1959, he served as Secretary of Sate of New York, succeeding Thomas J. Curran and preceding Caroline K. Simon. After he persuaded Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. to abandon his 1954 run for Governor of New York, DeSapio became enemies with Eleanor Roosevelt, who attempted to prevent DeSapio's ally W. Averell Harriman from being elected Governor. In 1958, the Republican Party won both the US Senate seat and the governorship in reaction to DeSapio's corruption, and his leadership, as well as the Tammany Hall dynasty, ended in 1961. In 2004, he died at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan at the age of 95.